Move over, Pinocchio, and interact with KASPAR
June 4, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
KASPAR is—-not the friendly ghost; not a mysterious boy found in 19th century Germany with a mysterious story (who is sometimes described in the context of feral children)—but a child-sized humanoid robot developed by the Adaptive Systems Research Group at the University of Hertfordshire. (KASPAR stands for “Kinesics and Synchronisation in Personal Assistant Robotics.”) As noted in the weblog of the American Association for Technology in Psychiatry, KASPAR is being developed as part of the European Robot Cup Project with the intent to “build an open-source robot platform for cognitive development research. The Adaptive Systems Research Group is investigating the use of gestures, expressions, synchronisation and imitation.” The plan is also to use KASPAR for developmental studies and to try him in interactive games.
KASPAR is meant to look like a little boy and is able to make minimal facial expressions and to move his arms and legs, and will be tested in school systems in the Hertfordshire region of the UK.
From the KASPAR website:
clipped from kaspar.feis.herts.ac.uk
This family of robots have been used in the past in the Aurora project which investigated the possible use of robotic systems as therapeutic or educational tools to encourage social interaction skills in children with Autism. They are currently being used also in our investigations with children with autism, part of the European IROMEC project , which acknowledges the important role of play in child development as a crucial vehicle for learning about the physical and social environment, the self, and for developing social relationships. IROMEC targets children who are prevented from playing, either due to cognitive, developmental or physical impairments which affect their playing skills, and is investigating how robotic toys can empower children with disabilities to discover the range of play styles from solitary to social and cooperative play.
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And, you can watch a video of KASPAR moving his neck, mouth, and eyelids and “interacting” with a teddy bear here. Shades of the movie A.I., perhaps?
Robots to interact with kids. Hmmm. Is it cheaper than actual human beings?
Why should any humans interact with kids w/disabilities?
I don’t know. It seems somehow sad to me.
I’ve been trying to think of the rationale behind this: A robot would be “more consistent” than a real child? But I strive so to teach my son to live in a world of inconsistencies.
I think I would have enjoyed a robot playmate. Not sure how much value there is to it, that would probably depend on what the parent is looking for.
Most, I’d guess, would want to use it as a stepping stone of sorts to encourage play with human children.
I tend to think its value would lie in its ability to play with the non autistic friend or family member in the same way it interacts with the autistic person. This could serve as a learning experience for both parties, and all three might choose to play together.
Robots are much easier to figure out than people. Sure, it’s not going to help a child figure out how to deal with real people doing things like lying, forgetting, changing their minds, etc. But mechanical, like imaginary, friends can be useful companions to a child who just gets too exhausted and frustrated with less predictable others.
Thanks Bev—-Charlie used to have one of those mechanical dogs (actually, now as I remember, he had 2). He was very fond of them. He is currently very fearful of real dogs, precisely for their unpredictability—-I can feel his heart racing if he sees one unexpectedly. He’s particularly nervous around small dogs.